2A high school soccer: Late surge sends Jayhawks into finals

SANDY — As the minutes ticked by and heavilyfavored St. Joseph found itself locked in a 0-0 stalemate with Millard on Friday in the 2A girls soccer semifinals, the Jayhawks became increasingly rattled.

Nothing had gone according to script for the defending 2A champs, and with less than 10 minutes remaining, they were struggling to not panic against a very determined and physical bunch from Millard.

In that moment, the Jayhawks needed somebody, anybody in a St. Joseph uniform to play with composure in front of goal.

Tauna DeHaan, to her immense credit, did precisely that, and in the process, she propelled her team back to the 2A title game.

DeHaan calmly slotted home an Ivee Barton through ball in the 73rd minute, and the Jayhawks emerged with a much closer-than-it-sounded 4-0 win over Millard at Sayers Field.

"I just thought, 'I can't miss this, or the team is probably gonna hate me,' " said DeHaan when asked what was going through her mind when the ball fell at her feet. "I just looked up at the goalie and thought, 'I need to kick it to the right spot, so she can't get it.' "

That's what DeHaan did, and it allowed the Jayhawks to get past Millard and get into today's championship game with Waterford at 11 a.m. inside Rio Tinto Stadium.

For much of Friday's semifinal, it seemed St. Joseph had its focus turned toward today's showdown with Waterford, instead of on Millard, whom St. Joseph beat 8-0 in last year's 2A title game.

The Jayhawks didn't disagree afterward.

"We played them for the championship last year, so we thought we had it," said DeHaan. "We kind of came in cocky, I think, and (for) the first two halves until the last six minutes, we were playing not the way we should've been. But then the last six minutes, we played like a real team."

Before that happened, though, the Jayhawks were clearly humbled.

After struggling at times in the first half, St. Joseph finally did start to settle in after halftime. But that elusive opening goal never came, and it seemed like overtime might be required when Barton played the ball through to DeHaan in the 73rd minute.

DeHaan found herself with nobody but the keeper to beat, and she struck the ball extremely well across goal and into the net.